


it's just safer to keep you in this heart of mine

by KikiRose



Category: Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Afterlife, Grey Havens, M/M, Post-Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KikiRose/pseuds/KikiRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo's last adventure from Middle-Earth to the Grey Havens could not possibly hold the reunion he so desperately craves. Yet who can say exactly what may pass while sailing through the veils of worlds?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Do you ever think of Thorin?

  
_Well it's been days now_   
_And you change your mind again_   
_All the cracks in the walls reminds you of things we said_   
_And I could tell you that I won't hurt you this time_   
_But it's just safer to keep you in this heart of mine_   


 

       Bilbo stared out over the glistening turquoise sea with a slight smile on his face. The sunlight, slippery and bright at this odd in-between state of the world they were sailing through, reflected off the water in brilliant arcs of gold.  
     “Quite a sight, eh, old friend?” Gandalf murmured happily from behind Bilbo, exhaling a stream of pipesmoke.  
     “Mm?” Bilbo turned to look at the wizard. “Quite a sight indeed, Gandalf.”  
     His eyes seemed to be glazed over with some old memories, Gandalf noticed, but still they were sharper than they had been when the hobbit had stepped onto the boat. The wizard had long wondered how the Grey Havens would effect those already so aged, those who were so near to the veil of death and the beckoning of what lies after.  
     Bilbo seemed to be doing just fine, however, and Gandalf was quite pleased to see it.  
     The old hobbit turned back to look at the ocean, eyelids fluttering as the ocean spray misted around their faces in cool kisses.  
     “Gandalf?” Bilbo said quietly after some time, not taking his eyes off the sea.  
     “Yes?”  
     “Do you ever think of Thorin?” Bilbo whispered, very quietly, something stealing over his face that was neither grief nor nostalgia.  
     “Mm?” Gandalf coughed slightly, surprised. “Why, yes. I think of him quite often, actually.”  
     “I used to think on him constantly,” Bilbo murmured, “before Frodo-lad came along. I was sure nothing would ever surpass my grief for him. The longing I had for his impossible return.”  
     Gandalf glanced down at his old friend, pity stirring in his heart. “Mourning does not end quickly, Bilbo.”  
     “So I thought,” a shadow crossed over Bilbo’s face, “but, Gandalf…the Ring began to take me. It siphoned my desire and love away from Thorin until it consumed me. It, not him.”  
     “Bilbo—“  
     “Since leaving Bag-End,” the hobbit kept speaking as if he hadn’t heard the wizard speak, “slowly I have felt the Ring leaving me. It still resides in my heart…but it’s as if as I move farther away from Middle-Earth Thorin is coming back to me, after all this time.”  
     Gandalf looked away from Bilbo and up at the endless sea, parted by the prow of their ship and the dancing sunlight. He, too, could clearly see what he was sure  Bilbo was picturing. The King Under The Mountain, one lost to them so long ago. Immortal as the dwarf who had fallen in battle, while Gandalf and Bilbo had aged and changed irrevocably.  
     “I wish I could promise you a proper reunion.” Gandalf sighed. “But it is not the afterlife we sail to, after all. Not for us.”  
     Bilbo chuckled suddenly. “Well I should hope not. Thorin would never desire to spend an eternity in the sanctuary of elves.”  
     Gandalf grunted, grinning around his pipe. “Quite right about that, old friend.”  
     Bilbo smiled, again, staring out over the ocean with only a touch of darkness in his eyes. “I think I’ll retire now, Gandalf. I’m getting much too old for all this excitement.”  
     “Rest well, Bilbo.” Gandalf sighed, exhaling a mouthful of smoke. “Pleasant dreams.”  
     “And the same to you, old friend.” Bilbo nodded before tottering slowly from the head of the ship back down to the small, cozy quarters that had been set aside for him and Frodo during the duration of their journey.  
      Gandalf blew smoke rings at the dwindling twilight and wondered, not for the first time, about far green shores.


	2. sailing the veils of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For what solace is there in dreams?

    Frodo was leaning over the rail of the ship, chin resting on his hands and eyes unfocused as he stared out over the twilight lit ocean. Slowly the sky turned the color of violets and the sea darkened to match it.  
     “I do love the ocean.” Bilbo said cheerfully, appearing suddenly at Frodo’s shoulder.  
     “Uncle Bilbo!” Frodo almost jumped. “You frightened me.”  
     “Sorry, lad.” The old hobbit chuckled. “Lost in thought, I assume?”  
     “You should be in bed, Uncle.” Frodo sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Your health—“  
     “We’re sailing for the last great sanctuary of the elves,” Bilbo grumbled, “do stop with these absurd concerns over my health.”  
     Frodo smiled, glancing at his beloved uncle. It was growing dark and his heart was heavy for all he was leaving behind, but being beside Bilbo was a great comfort.  
     Bilbo laid a hand on Frodo’s shoulder. “You did a very brave thing in leaving, lad. It is a choice I’m not sure I would have been able to make.”  
     “Well, didn’t you?” Frodo turned back to look at the ocean, pain singing in his heart like the quivering strings on a harp. “Middle-Earth is no longer home to you as well, now.”  
     Bilbo sighed. “There are some I would not have been able to leave behind in times past, Frodo-lad. I would never have been strong enough to do so.”  
     Frodo thought of Sam. Of his earthy, warm smell and the softness of his hair as Frodo had kissed his brow goodbye. He had wished for Sam to be well and whole, yet he felt as if he had been emptied even worse than before. He thought of Pippin and Merry, behind him now forever.  
     He thought of a cold, dulling pain that lurked in his shoulder. Of a blade pointed at the throat of the one he loved most in the world.  
     “I had no choice.” Frodo murmured.  
     “Mm,” Bilbo patted Frodo’s shoulder knowingly, “perhaps it is not I who needs sleep right now.”  
     Frodo laughed. “You might be right, uncle. I was speaking with Lady Galadrial earlier, and she said something I thought you might find interesting.”  
     “Well, out with it then, lad.”  
     “She said that we are sailing the veils of the worlds.” Frodo gestured to the great endless sky above them, now a velvety cobalt shot through with lavender and glittering stars. “Middle-Earth, the Grey Havens, and whatever lies in between and beyond them all meld in this ocean. They bleed together around us as we sail.”  
     Bilbo was quiet for a long moment, but when Frodo turned to look at him his uncle’s eyes were gentle and calm.  
     “I should wonder what dreams we may encounter, then.” He patted his nephew’s back. “Run to bed now, lad. Let them reach you in your sleep.”  
     Frodo swallowed, looking back over the sea. “Yes, uncle, I think I will.”  
     “That’s a good hobbit.” Bilbo smiled. “I’ll join you in our room later, then. Just have a final smoke out here, I think.”  
     Frodo kissed his uncle’s temple. “Good night, Uncle Bilbo.”  
     Slowly he walked to the stairs that led from the ship’s deck to the small cabin the hobbits had been given. It was warm and almost identical to any bedroom from the hobbit holes back in the Shire. Lying in bed, under covers that smelled faintly of herbs and sunlight, Frodo already felt at home.  
     Back under the sky, Bilbo stared into the sky and remembered a long ago adventure there and back again and all that he had gained and all that he had lost.  
     “Sailing the veils of the world, eh?” Bilbo reached up to the sky, feeling as if he could catch a sky. “How close are you to me then, Thorin?”  
     He chuckled to himself, sadly. Best not to get caught up in foolish dreams. There was a comfortable bed awaiting him tonight, and nothing more. Years had passed since the last time he had seen his King Under The Mountain, and not once had he caught him in his dreams. Bilbo had chased Thorin’s dark hair and booming laugh, it seemed, almost nightly. Until he dreamt only of the Ring. Until he lost the timbre of Thorin’s voice in the river of time and age.  
     No, no. There could be no solace in dreams, not for him. Still, a warm bed sounded quite nice at the moment.  
     “Goodnight.” Bilbo murmured at the sky, creaky voice lost under the heartbeat of the waves as he smiled ruefully and turned to follow the path his nephew had taken to bed.


	3. a world our own

_Blood on his hands blood staining his sleeves as he cried desperately for help, for salvation, for a miracle. Gentle fingertips at his brow, his mouth, his jaw as a low voice whispered that it was fine. That all was forgiven. Dimming eyes as life slipped away through the blood on his hands blood staining his sleeves_ he _was lost all was lost there was nothing—_

“Good heavens!” Bilbo sat bolt-upright, chest heaving. It had been so long since had dreamed of that terrible moment—so long since—

            “Hang on,” Bilbo paused, heart seeming to stop as he realized that whatever dream had left him, another has taken its place.

            Instead of waking up in his warm bed in the hold of the ship sailing to the Grey Havens, he was sitting in a open green field surrounded by leafy trees and cut through with a burbling stream. It was Middle-Earth at its finest, without a shadow of evil nor a spark of war to be seen. Bilbo had not seen his home like this in many, many years.

            “I’m still dreaming...” Bilbo murmured, rubbing his eyes as if to clear them.

            _Heavens what was wrong with his hands!_ Shakily Bilbo lowered them to see, stunned, that they were smooth and strong once again. Scrambling to his feet Bilbo rushed to the stream and peered in awe at his reflection. Somehow, impossibly, he looked as if he was fifty again. Reddish brown hair fell in soft curls past his ears, dark blue eyes that were unclouded and sharp, a smooth face uncorrupted by years or a Ring.

            “This isn’t _possible.”_ Bilbo gasped, standing up to examine every inch of his body. He was even wearing his old gardening shirt and trousers with the vest that he’d given to Frodo when the boy could fit into it. “I’m—this is _dream_ I’m back on the ship, still I’m just—“

            “Bilbo? Is that…you?”

            Bilbo froze. The voice behind him was so familiar it brought tears to his eyes. Yet it had been years since he had heard it, years since he had been able to remember it without the tinny distortion of time past. This was a dream. Bilbo never heard him in dreams.

            Yet there was a warmth at his back and breath ghosting across his neck, raising goose bumps across his skin.

            “Impossible.” Bilbo whispered even as rough fingers encircled his wrists. “This is just—a dream.”

            “If this a dream,” Thorin whispered in his ear, “and I could lose you at any second, will you not turn to face me so I may look upon your face?”

            With a whimper Bilbo turned to look at Thorin Oakenshield, his King Under The Mountain, standing tall and strong and unmarred by the bites of the axes and swords that had fell him. A smile was crossing the dwarf’s face, as bright as sunlight, but Bilbo did not see it as he buried his face into Thorin’s chest and sobbed.

            “Shh, shh.” Thorin’s hands were in his hair, at the collar of his shirt, gentle strokes down his back. “Hush, Master Hobbit, hush. Will I see you only in tears before you are gone again?”

            “Don’t.” Bilbo gripped Thorin’s white shirt, pressing his nose into the material as he inhaled the dwarf’s scent. It was both familiar and alien, something in it the Thorin he had known  and something completely different. “Don’t tell me what to do—“

            Strong arms encircled his suddenly, Thorin’s face burying in his shoulder.

            “Then do not disappear,” he whispered into the skin of Bilbo’s neck and the roots of his hair. Into the very center of his bones.

            Bilbo felt another wrenching sob rack his body but he slid his arms around Thorin’s neck and grabbed fistfuls of the dwarf’s hair as if that would somehow root him here, in this dream, in this perfect meadow, for as long as possible.

            “Thorin, where are we?” He whispered, tears thickening his voice but not wavering it. He felt stronger than he had in years. Then he ever had, even.

            “I no not.” Thorin replied, pulling back as far as he could with Bilbo’s hands in his hair. “Only that I was stirred from my sleep in the great halls of my fathers to find myself here.”

            “In the great—“ Bilbo’s eyebrows furrowed, “Thorin, am I _dead?”_

            Thorin’s eyes darkened. “If anyone dared to harm you—“

            “No, no, no.” Bilbo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Heavens, Thorin, I am quite old now. It’s been—Thorin, it’s been over fifty years since you died.”

            Thorin made to step away from him but Bilbo grabbed his shirt again, pulling them close with such ferocity that Thorin stilled.

             “I feel—I cannot believe so much time has passed.” Thorin whispered. “I can still remember, so clearly, seeing your face as everything went dark…and the awakening in the grand halls of my ancestors…”

            The dwarf trailed off, silently staring at Bilbo for a long moment before slowly cupping the hobbit’s face in his large hands. “I was not even certain I would ever see you again. For how could you belong where I was to rest? Or I you?”

            “Always the little things,” tears began to trickle down Bilbo’s face again as he reached up to lay his hands over Thorin’s, “between us. Lowly hobbit, Dwarven King. Different afterlives apparently.”

            “Then why are we here now?” Thorin whispered, eyes searching Bilbo’s face.

            “I don’t—“ Bilbo swallowed. “I fell asleep, Thorin. On a ship taking me to the Grey Havens. Away from Middle-Earth forever. I fell asleep and somehow, here I am.”

            _Middle-Earth, the Grey Havens, and whatever lies in between and beyond them all meld in this ocean. They bleed together around us as we sail._

Frodo’s voice came to him in a burst, everything rushing into place. He had fallen asleep in a place where worlds bled together, and here he was in a place that existed neither in his world nor the world of his fallen love. Someplace separate.

            “This is a dream,” Bilbo murmured in wonder, “but it is in the dream that we are meeting. In a world our own.”

            Thorin looked stricken for a beat of a heart before his features quickly became calm, stoic, strong again. “So you will disappear from me again, Master Hobbit?”

            “I don’t know,” Bilbo swallowed his certainty that, yes, that would almost definitely be how this ended. “Thorin, I would give anything to stay forever.”

            “Then I would cherish every moment of it,” Thorin whispered roughly before ducking down to crush their mouths together in a desperation that was both agony and ecstasy.

            Bilbo scrabbled at Thorin’s shirt, neck, hair, at anything he could get his hands on in an effort to get as close as he possible could. As close as possible, as long as he could stay in this bright sunlit dream with the arms of his King Under The Mountain firmly around him.


	4. under this eternal sunshine

 

          

             “I’ve dreamt of this,” Thorin whispered against Bilbo’s neck. The hobbit had forgotten until that moment the exact sensation of the Thorin’s beard scratching against sensitive skin, and with the sensation came a surge of memories that jellied Bilbo’s already weak legs.

            Catching Thorin by the arms Bilbo breathed kiss after breathless kiss into every inch of skin he could reach, biting and licking and _inhaling_ as if he could somehow take Thorin’s essence into his own body. “All my dreams were of chasing you, but never catching.”

            Thorin brought his mouth to Bilbo’s again, kissing him hard before murmuring, “It seems you have caught me now.”

            That whisper was the spark to tinder and before Bilbo could take a breath they were on the soft grass, Bilbo straddling Thorin’s waist and the dwarf’s hands running up Bilbo’s thighs, bum, back, and down again as the hobbit desperately tried to undo the ties of Thorin’s soft white shirt.

            “I adopted my nephew,” Bilbo murmured as he slid the shirt over Thorin’s head and kissed his collarbone, shoulder, “his parents drowned and I took him in—“

            “Father Bilbo?” Thorin laughed huskily as he nipped at Bilbo’s ear.

            “Uncle, actually.” Bilbo murmured in between kisses as his fingers played through the hair covering Thorin’s chest. “His name is Frodo.”

            “Frodo…” Thorin said slowly, sliding his fingers into Bilbo’s hair and staring up at him with dark, searching eyes.

            “He is far braver than I,” Bilbo said with a wry smile, “I passed to him a great burden, and he carried it better than I ever did.”

            “You are very brave indeed, my burglar,” Thorin raised his eyebrows, “so this Frodo must be a true champion.”

            “You would have been proud of him,” Bilbo laughed ruefully, “I don’t know why, but I thought that often as he grew.”

            An unreadable expression passed across Thorin’s face and suddenly he was on top of Bilbo, warm weight pressing the hobbit fully against the ground. Bilbo gasped at the soft mouth and sharp beard at his throat, the gentle press of fingers at the waist of his trousers.

            “Y-your turn,” he managed to pant, “I haven’t seen in you in fifty years. Anything to tell?”

            Thorin chuckled darkly as he slid Bilbo’s shirt up over his soft stomach. “Seeking secrets of the afterlife, Master Hobbit?”

            “I’m sure I’ll find out sooner or later—“

            “Hush.” Thorin stopped his progress of slowly undressing Bilbo, much to his chagrin, to look him carefully in the eye. “Let me think not of a place where you do not inhabit. My world has been full of shadows for these long years apart, Bilbo. While you and your nephew grew in the sun, I and mine grew farther away from the land of the living.”

            A cold weight settled in Bilbo’s heart. “Fili—Kili—“

            The shadow that passed Thorin’s face said it all. Bilbo could see it all in perfect clarity now; the life he had led with Frodo in the sunny Shire. Teaching him to read, to write, harvesting vegetables with him and young Samwise in the garden as the sun had dipped below the green hills. A world of colors and soft summers. And though there was peace and glory in death for Thorin and his nephews it compared not to the beauty and warmth of life.

            If anything it made Bilbo more aware of how, for so long, Thorin had been naught but a shadowy memory that both haunted and inspired him. And now he was here, blocking out the sun and pressing down on Bilbo with a weight as familiar as the dawn.

            _“Thorin.”_ Bilbo whispered reverently, pulling the dwarf back down and kissing him fiercely, sighing as the dwarf slipped his tongue into Bilbo’s mouth and then pulled back to finish stripping him of his clothes.

            “I did not mean to speak of dark things,” the dwarf murmured hoarsely against the skin of Bilbo’s stomach, licking a tender strip of skin just above the hobbit’s pelvis. “I have just—I have missed you very dearly, my burglar.” 

            Bilbo tried to speak around the moan building in the back of his throat. “If I pretend to be angry will you find some way to make it up to me?”

            Thorin laughed, the low rumble that Bilbo remembered and had heard snatches of in so many dreams, and pressed a kiss against Bilbo’s hip. “I will do anything to get back into your good graces, Master Hobbit.”

            “I should—I should hope so,” Bilbo gasped out as Thorin’s hands began sliding down his sides and down his hips, teasingly stroking Bilbo’s rapidly hardening length as the hobbit writhed underneath him.

            “I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Thorin growled in Bilbo’s ear as he began to move his fingers quicker, up and down Bilbo’s shaft with an almost unfair amount of dexterity, “just have to remember all the places that make you _squirm_.”

            Bilbo had forgotten how quick Thorin could unmake him, completely. In only a few words and gentle touches of his calloused hands Bilbo was already in a different world entirely, lost in the smell and the warmth of his King Under The Mountain.

            Thorin was licking patterns into Bilbo’s chest and teasing his cock with agile fingers, warm and real and thrumming with life. Bilbo’s hips arched up, begging for more. He wanted to meld completely with Thorin, to never lose this feeling of closeness.

            “Take me, Thorin,” Bilbo whispered hoarsely, “please.”

            Thorin grinned rakishly and nipped Bilbo’s chest before quickly removing his own trousers and gently spreading Bilbo’s legs apart. Hands on either side of Bilbo’s head and without warning Thorin was thrusting into him, hot and large and quick.

            Bilbo gasped and moaned, pain folded in razor edged pleasure spiking through him. He had been with Thorin at the dwarf’s gentler moments many time; cradled and petted and carefully driven into the ground. This was not gentle Thorin, though, this was aching and desperate and raw. Even if Thorin was trying to slow his thrusts it seemed he could not, cock pounding into Bilbo as the hobbit moaned and lifted his hips with each movement.

            “ _Mine,”_ Thorin growled in Bilbo’s ear, arms trembling above the hobbit. “You are _mine_.”

            Too far gone to speak Bilbo merely whimpered, nodding and moaning as Thorin’s relentless thrusts slid him closer to the edge. He lifted his legs over the dwarf’s shoulders and Thorin drove deeper into him, body bowed around Bilbo like a shield.

            Bilbo held on for as long as he could, desperate to somehow last in the moment forever, but Thorin was reaching down to grasp again at his cock and with a few deft swipes of his hand Bilbo came with an unintelligible cry, seed spurting over the dwarf’s belly. Thorin came only seconds later, with a roar and an almost punishing bite to Bilbo’s shoulder before he collapsed next to the hobbit, panting.

            They lay together, intertwined under the sun for what seemed like ages. Bilbo stared alternatively at the blue sky and Thorin, feeling so utterly content and satiated that for a long time the niggling whisper in the back of his mind did not surface.

            When it did, Bilbo propped himself on one elbow and stroked a strand of hair off of Thorin’s face. The dwarf murmured something drowsily, popping open one eye to look at Bilbo. He always got sleepy after their couplings, something Bilbo could remember well.

            “Thorin,” Bilbo began in an uncertain voice, “I—there’s something that I—“

            “What is it, Bilbo?” Thorin reached up to catch Bilbo’s hand against his face. “Speak.” 

            “I—“ Bilbo let out a long breath and pulled on his shirt for something to do, something to stall him until he had the words he needed. “Listen, I—Thorin. There was something I always wanted to say to you, before you d—back then. I always wanted to but I just couldn’t find the right way so say it and then I spent the—I’ve spent years, every day, wishing I had.”

            Bilbo took a deep breath, reminded himself what over fifty years of crushing guilt and regret felt like, and exhaled. “I love you, Thorin. I have—I always loved you and I just…I just wish that we had had years together and—“

            He was crying now, softly, unable to stop. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to truly look at how horrifically Thorin’s death had effected him, and how blind the Ring had made him to it.

            “Hush, hush, my burglar.” Thorin pulled Bilbo down next to him, wrapping his arms around the hobbit and holding him tightly against his chest. “No more tears.”

            The dwarf traced a gentle path over Bilbo’s cheek and mouth, dark eyes tender. “We are never truly apart, Master Hobbit. Not a day has gone by these past long years where I have not thought on you, Bilbo. For I love you as well.”

            “No matter what happens,” Bilbo tangled his hand in Thorin’s hair, “promise that you will always be with me.”

            Thorin kissed him, gentle now, all the wild desperation gone. “I already am.”

            And that was enough. It really was. For Bilbo, who had spent so many lonely years feeling as if there was a jagged hole in his heart, it seemed enough to hold and be held. To feel complete and know that whatever happened next, he would always be so.

            They lay under the sun for an indefinite moment, speaking softly of memories they shared and things that had happened while they were apart. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all, instead letting their bodies to the talking. Time had to meaning. Until Thorin finally drifted off to sleep, Bilbo’s head pillowed on his shoulder and clothes more or less on.

            Bilbo was content to watch the shadows play across Thorin’s face until he reached out to brush a strand of hair away and realized that he was slowly going transparent.

            “Oh,” Bilbo gasped, staring down at his body. It seemed as if his time here had finally come. “Oh, I think I’m waking up.”

            Thorin did not stir. Perhaps he could not here Bilbo now, or maybe his sleep had begun to return him to the place he had come from. “Oh, Thorin. Oh, my King Under The Mountain.”

            He leaned down and cupped the dwarf’s face in his slowly fading hands and pressed kisses on his forehead, nose, lips.

            “I really do love you.” He whispered, feeling a sun rising over a boat a far way off. “And now I know I will always be able to find you.”

            Just as Bilbo could feel the last of his energy draining away, Thorin’s eyes flew open and his hand came to the last shadow of Bilbo’s face.

            Their eyes met, just for a moment, and Thorin smiled.

            Bilbo was still smiling back as he woke up in his elf-made bed on the boat whisking him away to a new life, the sun rising hot above him and the ocean where the worlds bled together and two long-separated lovers may hold each other once more.

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL THERE YOU ARE.

**Author's Note:**

> I WRITE SAD THINGS I DON'T KNOW WHY. Expect smut in the upcoming chapters.


End file.
